The present invention relates to an apparatus for treating a cloth such as knitted, woven and non-woven ones continuously with the use of low-temperature plasma.
There are such processes as pretreatment and finishing treatment for treating a cloth continuously. In the pretreatment of a cloth prior to dyeing, for instance, there is a process of scouring, in which water repellent foreign matters adhering to the cloth are removed or made into hydrophilic for facilitating the permeation of dye solution in the cloth, in the finishing treatment of a cloth after dyeing, the cloth is made into soft, water repellent, antielectrostatic, soil release, waterproof and so on, and these treatments are done in an aqueous system.
For instance, in the scouring treatment of a cloth containing cotton, the cloth is treated with an alkaline solution containing such an agent as caustic soda or soda ash with an auxiliary agent for scouring by boiling or by steaming for making water repellent foreign matters water soluble, the cloth is repeatedly washed with water for removing the solubilized foreign matters and the agents adhering to the cloth, and the cloth is finally dried. In the finishing process, the cloth is treated with a finishing agent dissolved or dispersed in water and filtered, and then water is evaporated by passing the cloth through a drier. According to the kind of treatment, it is necessary further to fix the finishing agent to the cloth by a high temperature heat treatment.
In these processes, however, the treating agent is costly, a large quantity of heat is necessary for the reaction between the agent and the cloth, a large quantity of water is needed for washing the treated cloth and an apparatus is necessary for the abandonment of waste water, so that it is the present status that large quantities of water resource and heat energy must be consumed for subjecting a cloth to the above-mentioned treatments. Furthermore, since the waste solutions of these treatments contain unavoidably a large quantity of the agent employed, there occurs a problem of public pollution, accompanying uneconomical countermeasures therefor.